In which I have, remarkably, a date on the horizon

Hmm. A man, a man with two legs, arms, a head, a job, probably a cheque book rather than a piggy bank, called me on Sunday.

I have met this man precisely once, and was wearing jodhpurs at the time and had Sudocrem in my hair.

He asked if I’d like ‘a coffee’ on Wednesday. This will, if I say yes, be only the second time since my divorce that I will have sat opposite a man and put things in my mouth (my last ‘date’, when I had dinner with the American writer, was a non starter, if you recall, because the man in question described me as ‘driven, bitter and forward-looking’ and said he likes women who, in the morning, leap out of bed with glossy hair, no make-up, and look naturally beautiful, which is not, as we know, me at all).

The problem is that this new man does not want me to write about him.

When I used to write about my husband, I did so on the assumption that a) he wouldn’t bother to read what I’d written because he was so lazy and b) I could stop him from reading what I had written.

I managed the second option for quite a few years. Each Sunday morning, I would take him on elaborate jaunts, just to keep him from getting within striking distance of a newsagent.

The problems started when this column was made available online, which meant he could read it without getting off his large arse. This caused me much anxiety (his reading of the internet, not his bottom), especially if I had written something particularly embarrassing, such as that he once phoned me at work to tell me he’d been holding a competition to find out which cat had the best tail.

Factor a), his laziness, luckily meant he was still, for quite some time, too lazy to call up my columns on the internet. Only when I started writing about his infidelity did he suddenly start reading what I had written, probably motivated by a warped sense of pride in his accomplishments.

I have got in a lot of trouble over the years because of what I write. Not only was my husband full of rage when I wrote about his peccadilloes, the fact I wrote about him scuppered his chances with other women.

When I wrote that he had seen me for a drink in a hotel, and had stayed the night (albeit it in a strange, asexual manner), his then ‘girlfriend’, the ‘stripper’, would have got quite hot under the collar if she had ever worn any clothes.

When the work experience girl he had unprotected sex with in Mumbai got wind I was going to write about her (I had sent her an e-mail, telling her she might want to forewarn her boyfriend), she started sending threatening e-mails. A simple ‘sorry’ would have sufficed.

One of my best friends ended our friendship after I wrote that he once said ‘having children isn’t the be all and end all. Sometimes, it’s really hard, and boring.’

Another friend never spoke to me again after I wrote that her waist measured four feet (she was pregnant at the time).

Kevin the Osama Bin Laden lookalike never contacted me again I am sure, partly, because I described him as an Osama Bin Laden lookalike and once criticised him for only paying half of a £13 dinner bill.

The man I am about to meet knows I write this column.

I am sure he has Googled me and found out the following:I am 50.I have an ex-husband.I have white whiskers, grey roots, veneers, have had plastic surgery, have quite a lot of cellulite, but no eyebrows to speak of.I open the fridge door using the bottom of my T-shirt.I like Prada.I take oily baths by candlelight.I feel the cold.I have pets.He is either brave, or as completely and utterly batty as I am.